By a word translation technique, an input word of a first language is referred to a bilingual dictionary, and a translation of the word in a second language is extracted from the bilingual dictionary. The extracted translation is then output. By a sentence translation technique, an input sentence in a first language is analyzed in terms of morpheme, and the group of the words constituting the sentence is extracted. Translations of the extracted words are retrieved from a bilingual dictionary, and a translation in the form of a sentence is formed on the basis of the links between the words. For example, Non-Patent Reference 1 discloses a machine translation system that utilizes the links between words.
Such word and sentence translation techniques are utilized in electronic word translation devices and computers. In an electronic word translation device, bilingual dictionaries of two or more languages are stored in a memory. When a user inputs a word of a first language, a translation of the word is extracted from one of the bilingual dictionaries, and is displayed on a display.
Patent Reference 1 discloses a technique for saving each user the trouble of selecting the type of dictionary when a search is carried out in an electronic dictionary device. Based on a search word that is input by a user, dictionaries are searched for a direction word, and the contents of dictionaries containing the direction word are collectively displayed.
[Patent Reference 1]    Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2000-276479
[Non-Patent Reference 1]    Suzuki and Tochinai, “Machine Translation System Using Conjunctive Relations of Words”, IPSJ Transactions, Vol. 29, No. 4, 1988